Page 44 of One Last Chance

He shrugged. “Okay, let’s do that.”

I gasped. “Kash! We can’t do that. We can’t do any of this, not here.”

He scowled and rubbed his steering wheel like he was resisting the urge to hit it. “Why the hell not, Daisy? I want to kiss you in public. I want to hold your hand in the grocery store and take you to the movies and buy you flowers. I want to kiss you on the bridge and in the library and take you out to fancy dinners.”

“So let’s do all that!Afterwe get out of town. There has to be a way. Damn it, Kash, I’ll live in a fifth wheel with you if I need to. I’ll live in this truck with you! I don’t care what we live in, we just can’t live here.” I sighed, making peace with a backup plan I’d been holding off on. Calmer now, I tried again. “You know all those dolphin collectibles Hunter bought for me? I’ve got twelve of them. They all have semi-precious stones for eyes. I got them priced last year when things got really bad—I can get two hundred a piece for them. That’s twenty-four hundred dollars. I have eight hundred saved already. That’s enough to get us out of here and into a little apartment somewhere else.”

“Daisy, don’t do that.”

“I know, I know,” I said, pressing a hand to my belly. “I don’t want to. When I look at them, I kind of feel like Hunter’s still with me somehow. But then I think, what would he really want for me? Would he want me to hold on to presents he gave me if it means being stuck here forever?”

Kash shook his head. “He’d want you to be happy.”

I nodded. “So that’s what I’m going to do. I’ll sell the dolphins and we’ll get the hell out of here.”

“Daisy. Don’t do that. Seriously, don’t do that.”

I raised my hands and let them fall. “What then?”

He didn’t answer. A muscle jumped in his jaw and he rubbed a hand across his chin.

“Damn it Kash, what’s holding you back? Why won’t you make a plan with me?”

He ground his teeth, started to say something, then stopped himself. Then he reverted to shaking his head and pressing his lips together.

“What, Kash? Talk to me! You don’t tell me what’s going on. All we ever talk about is the past, or our feelings right now. We never talk about the future, why is that?”

He didn’t answer me, but his breath deepened and quickened.

“Why, Kash? Talk to me!” I was louder now. Impatient. Angry. Sad. Every single emotion bundled up into one.

“I can’t leave town, okay?!” He tensed like he was going to punch the dashboard, then deliberately unfurled his fingers and patted it instead.

I stared, frozen. “What do you mean, you can’t leave town?”

“I mean… I can’t leave town. I have a parole officer who’s an absolute dickweed. I’m on parole for the next ten years unless I can prove that someone else killed Hunter, and that I’m not profiting from drugs. Which means the money that Hunter and I stashed is untouchable even if I was allowed to take you out of town, which I’m not.”

Hot, frustrated tears prickled at my eyes. “That—that’s not fair!”

“Don’t tell me, tell Breaker. I’ve checked with the judge, I’ve checked the laws, and it isn’t the usual way of things but there is precedent for it. Apparently I’m dangerous, and they want to keep me contained so I don’t…I don’t know, go on a murder spree or something.” He shoved a hand through his hair, glaring through the windshield.

I stared out the window, seeing nothing except the images of my potential future crumbling to pieces. Everything was upside down now. Maybe Kash and I just weren’t meant to be—it certainly seemed that way. No other relationship has to go through this many hurdles before it’s even managed to get one foot off the ground.

“So—you can never leave?” I asked.

“Not for ten years. Or until I prove that I didn’t kill Hunter, which could take just as long. Or longer.”

Ten years. I closed my eyes, succumbing to the boulder of helplessness which had grown exponentially over the last few minutes. There was nowhere to go and no way to stay without sacrificing my future to save my family. Ten years of sneaking through my window stretched before me. A dark desire rose in my mind. The way Dad drank, it was only a matter of time before his liver failed him. Cruelly, I wished for it to happen sooner than later.

I wrenched myself away from that thought, flinging my eyes open. No, no, that was no way to think about this. I couldn’t just wish death upon him. There had to be some humane way to work this out, there just had to be.

“So we figure out who really killed Hunter,” I said desperately. “We know everybody in town, there has to be something the cops missed. We can figure this out.”

“You aren’t Nancy Drew, Daisy, and I’m no Sherlock Holmes. This is a six-year-old cold case. All the evidence is locked up, they aren’t just going to hand it to me. You really think whoever did it is going to talk? They’ve spent the last six years comfortable and confident that they got away with murder. Assuming we could even get close to them, what do you think would happen? They’ve already killed once; they’d kill us to keep their freedom. Guaranteed.”

I clenched and unclenched my fists. There had to be something we were missing, some loophole in the law or in my house. Kash set his hand on my thigh and softened his expression, his voice softening to match.

“That’s why I wanted to come here,” he said. “To show you that this is survivable. Sure, your dad’s going to be pissed for a while, but he’ll get over it. Maybe the town will be shocked, maybe they won’t. I’m pretty sure my story isn’t the hot gossip it was a couple months ago.”

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